1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to lesion assessment and, more specifically, to computer aided lesion assessment in dynamic contrast enhanced breast MRI images.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of all cancer deaths for women in the United States. Early detection and treatment may significantly increase a patient's chances for survival and recovery. Accordingly, effective breast cancer screening is of particular importance. Various techniques are available for imaging a patient's breast to accurately diagnose breast cancer. For example, x-ray mammography, thermal imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), etc. Many conventional approaches to breast imaging involve x-ray mammography.
Mammography may be used to identify two types of abnormalities in breast tissue: soft tissue lesions (tumors) and clusters of microcalcifications which may be an early sign of possible cancer. Tumors are generally characterized as palpable lesions while microcalcifications are generally characterized as non-palpable. While mammography remains the most popular clinical modality of breast cancer screening, it may lack sufficient specificity to adequately distinguish between certain types of cancerous lesions and certain types of benign abnormalities. Moreover, mammography may be incapable of effectively imaging dense breast tissue.
MRI may also be used to image a patient's breast. For example, dynamic contrast enhanced breast MRI may be used. In dynamic contrast enhanced MRI, four-dimensional volumetric data, including three spatial dimensions and a temporal dimension, a magnetic contrast agent, for example, a gadolinium based contrast agent (Gd-DTPA), may be delivered and the patient's breast may be imaged continuously over a period of time thereafter. Such a technique may provide a medical practitioner, for example, a radiologist, with the opportunity to monitor the kinetic characteristics of the contrast agent as it interacts with the area of the suspicious region. Such information may be particularly useful in differentiating between cancerous lesions and benign abnormalities, especially when analyzed along with other imaging data such as morphological characteristics and patterns of enhancement formations.
Assessment of such properties as morphological characteristics and patterns of enhancement formations, however, remains something of an art and is difficult to measure quantitatively. Accordingly, such diagnostic techniques may lack a sufficient level of consistency and accuracy.